The 45-year-old Jesuit priest, head of the Vatican Observatory, explained that the large number of galaxies with their own planets made this possible.

Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: “Certainly, in a universe this big you can’t exclude this hypothesis.”

But, in the interview headlined “The extra-terrestrial is my brother”, he said he saw no conflict between belief in such beings and faith in God.

“Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God,” he said.

“This is not in contrast with our faith because we can’t put limits on God’s creative freedom.

“Why can’t we speak of a ‘brother extraterrestrial’? It would still be part of creation.”

Funes, who runs the observatory which is based south of Rome and in Arizona, held out the possibility that the human race might actually be the “lost sheep” of the universe.

The Vatican Observatory is one of the world’s oldest astronomical institutes.

As early as the end of the 1700s, three Vatican-sponsored observatories were studying the stars from Rome, and in 1891 Pope Leo XIII formally established the Vatican Observatory inside the Vatican behind St Peter’s dome.

Argentinian Funes said he believed as an astronomer that the most likely explanation for the start of the universe was “the big bang”, the theory that it sprang into existence from dense matter billions of years ago.

But he said this was not in conflict with faith in God as a creator.

“God is the creator. There is a sense to creation. We are not children of an accident,” he added.

“As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us.”